The Taste of Ink
by DearSweetPapercut
Summary: "Sometimes you just need someone to blame for a change, someone other than yourself"


I hope you all like this, please review.

This is an exploration of Sara's past, there is abuse and rape, I hope I don't upset you. If so, I'm very sorry.

Title by The Used.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**The Taste of Ink **

**(1) **

_Sometimes you just need someone to blame for a change, someone other than yourself. You need to dredge through the memories of your past and pin-point a person or a place and make them hold responsibility for how you feel all of these years later. _

_Blame them for the mistakes you've made and the habits you've learnt. _

_And for all of the things that seem to be going constantly wrong in your life. _

_You associate the things you hate about yourself with them and when attempting burying your demons you realise that perhaps it'll never work- because all of the things wrong aren't really you- they are someone else. _

_Or rather they are someone else's creation._

_Like your feelings of rage... _

A whimper escaped Sara's lips as she rested her head against the smooth wood of her bedroom door. The tears blurred her vision the flashes of the pink walls danced in front of her eyes. She attempted to silence herself- wincing in pain as she pulled her broken wrist closer to her body letting it rest in her lap. She glanced down to see the splatter of blood on the white shirt of her school uniform and her knee length socks. As she closed her eyes she recalled the smell of whiskey on her father's breath as he taunted her about wasting her time.

She'd been twenty minutes late walking home, having stopped at the library to pick up something to read over the weekend. With the heat of the San Francisco sun beating down, making the school blazer seem almost unbearable, she walked with Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" tucked under her arm.

It was not until she had approached her front door that she'd realised the error she had made being late. A bone chilling scream came from the other side- taking a deep breath she stepped inside placing her book bag down by the door and removing her blazer. She knew that any moment now that he would be walking towards her with a look of nothing but pure hatred. Sara kept her eyes on the mahogany floors, her fingers curled up in anticipation of what was to come. Her father roughly grabbed her wrist dragging her up the stairs with little regard to whether the rest of her body followed.

"What did you think you were playing at being this late?" He growled this grip tightening. She glanced back down the stairs to see her mother attempting to clamber up them to stop him from hurting her child, her face bruised and bloodied from a day of being stuck in a house with a man that acted as her jailor. Sara wondered what she'd done today that had led to a beating. Even as a child she knew that the treatment that her mother faced was unjust.

"What were you doing?" He demanded to know but Sara remained silent, she knew that when it came to her father's question there was no such thing as the right answer. She knew only too well that whatever she said would anger him further.

"I told you to tell me where you were." He shouted ignoring her mother's insistence that he let go of Sara.

He opened the door to her bedroom and threw her inside with little regard, her head catching the corner of the small writing desk pain immediately coursing through her blood stream.

Sara dragged herself to the dark spot behind her door a lump building up in her throat as she heard her parents continue to argue from the other side of the door. Bringing her knees closer to herself she curled up into a ball, into the smallest thing she could possibly be, wishing that she could disappear.

Be somewhere, anywhere, else other than the place she called home.

She couldn't help but let the resentment she felt towards her father bubble up inside her as she listened to the sounds of her mother's pleas for him to stop.

**(2) **

_You want to blame someone for the person you've let yourself become. Blame them for the way you isolate yourself because you never learnt how to have someone care for you. _

_And it wears you down- the fact that you know that there won't be anyone there. _

_There is something utterly devastating about being alone in a crowd. Something soul destroying about realising that you have no one to count on but yourself._

_There are the days, nights and afternoons where you hope that someone will be there to tell you the lies that other hear from their loved one- that things will be alright or that things will get better._

_You start to wonder what you've done wrong over the years to deserve the fate of having no one. _

_You realise that there is no one to blame for the fact you are alone... _

The sun light poured through the window illumining the small suitcase that was slowly filling up with clothes. Sara carefully folded the few things she owned placing them in. The anticipation growing as the clock continually ticked in the background as a reminder that time was passing by.

"Sara!" A voiced called.

"Coming!" She shouted back, and quickly placed the few books she owned inside the case. She zipped it up; her thin frame struggling with the weight she carried it down stairs placing it by the front door.

"Sara this is James Keel he'll be taking you to your new home." Carole, her foster mother told her.

She nodded tucking her hair behind her ears as she attempted to hold tears back knowing that this was it. That this was another goodbye that she had to simply just understand.

Sara felt her heart slowly creep up into her throat as she let go of another place that she could never call home.

**(3) **

_There are certain people that stick out more than others in your memory._

_People that make you choke you up and make you feel small, insignificant and worthless. Those are the people you feel like you need to blame the most because those are the people that broke you. _

_They are who you should blame for things like the fact you don't know how to trust any more... _

Sara picked up her school books while the sound of the bell rang through her ears informing everyone that it was the end of the day and that they could all go home- not that she had a real home.

"Sara, could you stay behind please." Mr Hutchinson said softly as she approached the front of the class. She nodded with a smile. After all of this time it felt as if someone had finally had noticed her.

Mr Hutchinson was a quiet, soft spoken man in his forties with a taste for Italian suits and peppermint tea. Over the past year or so Sara had indulged him in conversation in exchange for him lending her books.

"I have a new book, I think you might enjoy." He said with a gentle smile leading her towards his office- Sara followed him fiddling with the strap of her school bag.

"Would you like something to drink?" He asked closing the door behind him and switching the kettle on, Sara nodded sitting herself down on the seat next to his desk.

"Isn't it your eleventh birthday today? I saw on the register." He said flippantly sitting himself down in a strangely formal encounter.

"Yes...yes it is." Sara glanced down at her hands in her lap realising that it didn't really matter what day it was life seemed to always be the same for her. He smiled giving her the once over in a way that made Sara uncomfortable but she ignored it.

He stood up finding a book on the shelf behind him and walked towards her. He handed her the book his eyes not leaving her. Once she had taken the book from his hand, he found a place on her jaw for it to rest.

"Has anyone told you that you're pretty?" He asked almost whispering.

"No." Sara blushed at the attention tipping her head forward to look at the ground.

"You are." She looked up at him wide eyed, still embarrassed.

Before she could say another word, or do anything, he had picked her up and placed her down on the edge of the desk.

"I really have to go..." She muttered attempting to move but he's legs where on either side of hers and she realised that she couldn't move.

"It's fine... I'll let them you know you were with me." He placed a finger on her lips, letting his other hand slide up her top. Sara felt paralyzed as he began unbuttoning her shirt, his hands descending on her skin.

"You're so beautiful." he whispered in her ear making her feel sick as his hand slipped down her trousers, between her legs.

Sara closed her eyes hoping that when she opened them, all of this would be a dream, that none of what was happening was real. But when she opened them again, the image of the man before her did not change. He was leering at her, with a smirk, as if she weren't a real person. Before she could do anything else he'd removed her trousers and panties and then his own before forcing her legs apart.

"Please...please don't..." she begged, hoping that it would be enough to stop him. But it didn't. He just touched her again. Pushing her so she was flat on her back.

"Shh...it'll be okay...I'll be gentle I promise." He pinned her wrists down and entered her.

"Fuck Sara..." He groaned as he jerked above her.

She stared at the ceiling beyond his shoulder attempting to numb her body to the pain that was surging through her. Sara imagined being anywhere else but then where she was- lost a world in search of an alternate reality with companions that would never leave her, friends that would never hurt her.

"You're so tight...you're so good..." His words did nothing but drag her back to a reality that nauseated her. A tear rolled down her cheek as he finished.

"You're such a good girl..." He whispered getting his breath back.

He ghost of his touch made her gag. She kept her eyes on the ceiling, laying on the desk feelings worthless, used and pathetic. It felt as if she was completely empty, like he had taken the thing that made her human.

**(4) **

_Who do you blame for the things you didn't realise until late in your life? _

_Who do you blame for things that you simply just weren't taught? _

_Like your inability to love. _

Sara laid in the middle of the king bed the neon lights of Vegas a view out of her window as she as she couldn't sleep. She wrapped her arms around herself attempting to stop all of the feelings over whelming her. She turned to the clock- 4 am. Each day just seemed to be a repeat of the one previous.

She didn't want to remember how much every bruise, every cut, hurt.

She didn't want to know what it was like be alone all over again.

She didn't want to feel his hands on her any more.

She just didn't want to be this.

_Being half dead wasn't what I planned to be._

_Now I'm ready to be free._

**The End **


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